Exhibitors
Show gardens
Telford & Wrekin Council
The Thomas Telford Tollhouse Garden
Designers: Michael Vout and Chris Jones, Telford & Wrekin Council
Sponsor: Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, Telford & Wrekin Council
Contractors: Telford & Wrekin Council, P & W Maintenance Contracting, Harper Adams University College, Dingle Nurseries, British Wild Flower Plants
Click here to view a panorama of this garden.
Click on the images to view a hi-res version
This garden celebrates the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of the nation’s greatest engineers - Thomas Telford.
The Thomas Telford Tollhouse Garden is inspired by Telford and his tollhouses on the Holyhead Road, which stretches from London to Holyhead. The tollhouses were also the toll keeper's home and time was spent gardening for leisure and pleasure. The garden also helped sustain the household with fruit and vegetables. This garden aims to capture the essence and quality of Telford’s designs.
The garden is set in the 1820s and features a tollhouse, privy, toll gate, green picket fence and even the highway itself. Details such as the roof on the tollhouse, colour of the fence, construction of the highway and footpaths and boundary treatment all meet Telford’s specifications. It is divided into a fruit, vegetable and herb garden, with cabbage, carrots, beetroot, strawberries, gooseberries and rosemary, and a decorative garden with ornamental plants. The vegetables grown were all available in the early 1800s.
Foxglove is prominent in this garden as it highlights a link with another renowned Telford man, Dr William Withering. Dr Withering did extensive work into the properties of foxgloves and developed digitalis as a heart medication.
It is the garden designers - Michael Vout and Chris Jones - first time exhibiting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Previously they have exhibited at Malvern and won a number of RHS Gold and Silver medals.